Right now, customers can only buy the Surface RT tablet at Microsoft Stores

Reports on Microsoft's Surface tablet have been a mixed bag lately, but All Things D is pretty clear about its position: the demand and sales just aren't there.

All Things D recently spoke with Boston-based brokerage firm Detwiler Fenton about Microsoft's Surface RT tablet. The verdict? Microsoft better get its tablet out in other stores or it's going to sink.

"Lack of distribution is killing the product," said Detwiler Fenton. "Mixed reviews and a [$499] starting price tag certainly don't help, but lack of retail exposure at Best Buy and others is severely depressing sales."

Right now, customers can only buy the Surface RT tablet at Microsoft Stores. The problem with this is that there's only 31 of them, with another 34 smaller Microsoft kiosks around the U.S.

Due to this lack of presence in major retailers, Detwiler Fenton estimates that Microsoft will only sell 500,000 to 600,000 Surface RTs in the December quarter. This is a strong hit to previous estimates of 1 million to 2 million.

Recently, a pair of reports from both CNET and The Seattle Times showed differing views on how Windows 8-based touchscreen tablets, convertibles and laptops are faring. CNET spoke with IDC and IHS iSuppli analysts, who said retailers were having trouble keeping them on shelves due to high demand. However, The Seattle Times begged to differ, echoing Detwiler Fenton's concerns: there just aren't very many Windows 8 tablets out yet, and those that are are impossible to find. However, other Windows 8 tablets are sold in major retailers like Best Buy; not just Microsoft Stores.

Microsoft's Surface Pro is expected to be released in January, which will feature the Windows 8 Pro operating system instead of Windows RT for ARM-based tablets.

"The only major non-Apple aspect of Surface is the expandable memory."

You forgot a few things:

1. Quality Apps. The ones in the Surface app store are all junk. None of the major players are in there.

2. A usable app store. Ever used the Surface app store? You can't find anything. The search is useless. As someone else pointed out, try and find the you-tube app. You can't. You get 1000 results, and the official YouTube app is buried like 400 deep down that list.

3. Brand recognition. Everyone knows Apple and the iPad. Ask anyone off the street about "Microsoft Surface" and you'll get a lot of "huh?" and puzzled looks.

4. Maturity. iPad and the apple app store are mature well developed products. The bugs are all ironed out, it's gone through several generations of improvements, it's a very polished product. Surface? Not so much. It's the bug-riddled pimple faced new kid on the block.

5. Customers. People line up down the street to buy Apple products on the first day of sale. Outside of internet forum fanboys living in their parents basement, Microsoft simply does not have dedicated fans that queue up to buy the latest thing - quite the opposite actually, most people refuse to buy anything with a 1.0 version number from Microsoft- they want to wait until a few service packs have been released, and the bugs ironed out- people are well aware of Microsoft's track record of selling half-baked products that simply aren't "finished". I.e. win98 is what win95 should have been. Win2k is what WinME should have been. Win Seven is what Vista should have been. Etc.